A Fray of Furies, page 36
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
She steeled herself.
She’d never been called upon to deliver a master’s mercy to a crippled pony. She imagined it felt something like this...
His wrong-footed shuffle brought her acute relief. He was in his stupor. By her forebears’ knucklebones! She could deliver her warning, even remove the seal, before Bearbait ever surfaced.
“What’s this?” the magistrate eyed Bearbait uncertainly.
“Not sure, sir. He was fine a moment ago. Then he had hisself a stumble on the steps. When we got him up, he was as you see. Deaf and dumb. We had to half-carry him the rest of the way.”
“Feigning injury will not save you from testifying, young man,” the magistrate cautioned, peering over round spectacles.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir. I don’t think he’s mumming it.”
“An expert on mummery, are you constable?”
“No, sir. But look…” Bearbait’s head was yanked up by the hair. The skin of his cheek was split and weeping. “Ain’t no mummer I ever seen breaks their fall with their face.” The guard snapped his fingers before Bearbait’s nose, eliciting no blink.
“This happens,” she informed the room, drawing everyone’s eyes, save Bearbait’s. “Sometimes,” she explained, “he speaks. He walks. Sometimes,” she indicated with a clanking wave, “like this. It will pass.”
“If the witness cannot–”
“Proceed,” the priest interrupted.
After a moment’s hesitation, the magistrate gestured, looking reluctant. The unresponsive Bearbait was herded into the room.
“Stay,” the magistrate forestalled, when Histil would have left. “I’m in no mood to deal with a foaming fit.”
Singled out, Histil glared at her as he took up his position.
“Ahem,” the magistrate began again. “So. Now.” The papers before him were given a cursory shuffle “Your name, please?”
She was prepared this time.
“Kassika, daughter of Esse–”
“You are a Hillman, Kassika? Or does one say Hillwoman?”
She blinked. But, apparently, the magistrate was not about to correct his misstep. Inwardly, she growled. She had no time to be teaching citymen proper manners. She had a warning to deliver.
“I am of the Hillmen. Though we do not call ourselves–”
“And how did you come to be traveling with this young man?”
Calm, she told herself. Calm. She took a deep breath.
“I found this one south of the Blackwater, farther than any kri–”
“Found him? So is he not a Hillman? You look to be cousins.”
“He is no blood of mine,” she seethed at the suggestion.
“Can you be sure of this?”
“He does not speak the mountain tongue,” she hissed through her teeth. “He does not know our ways. He–”
“What language does he speak?”
“He speaks the tongue of the citymen. What you call Heli.”
“You’ve heard the witness speak?”
Histil started at being addressed, “Yes, sir.”
“And? Does he sound like this one?” the quill indicated her.
“No, sir. Sounded like a local lad, sir. I’d go so far as to say he’s had a touch of learnin’ even.”
“Learned?” The magistrate peered doubtfully, “What ails him?”
Finally.
“He is krin.”
They looked at her, uncomprehendingly. She drew on the trove of city-words she’d curated from past conversations.
“What you call a ‘denizen’,” she explained.
At this, the magistrate jumped, eyes shying like colts, new to the bit. He reined them in before they could roll toward the priest.
“That is an… unprecedented accusation. Please, explain.”
She wouldn’t muck up her speech this time.
“Once, the land of citymen was young and the Old Masters ruled. To make a home for their people, they drive evil from the land. Then, to each tribe, they give a sacred task. Each to his own strength. The People are hunters and trackers like none other. To them, the Old Masters give the most important task: read the signs, wait and watch for evil’s return. If evil wakes, if evil stalks the fires of man again, send warning with the Herald.
“So, the People follow evil’s tracks, high into the mountains, and make their own home in evil’s hunting ground. Since the time of the ancestors, we wait. We watch. We give our steel and we give our blood. We hunt the krin, we cull all we find. The seasons pass. The descendants of the Old Masters forget who guards their sleep. They forget the sacred duty, given to the People.
“This spring, we find a krin unlike any other. One that can walk in the skin of a man, in the light of day. Only the oldest tales tell of this. It is then we knew. Evil wakes. Evil gathers its legs beneath it. The krin make ready to hunt the lowlands once more.”
She let her eyes linger on Bearbait’s deceptively restful form. She was pleased to see Histil, warily doing the same.
“I survived the krin,” she concluded. “I was chosen, as Herald, to bring you the warning promised by my ancestors.”
The magistrate peered at her, chin tucked in his collar.
“Young lady this is a–” he glared at the shabby environs, “–a place of fact. Of evidence. Not myth and superstition.”
“I bring you the evidence of my eyes,” she returned. “And the creature of which I speak, in the flesh.”
For no reason she could fathom, the magistrate seemed relieved.
“You bring me flights of fancy and a boy with the falling sickness. No doubt your tall tales turned heads up in the mount–”
The priest’s raised finger fell like a whip. The magistrate obediently sputtered to a stop, eyeing it nervously.
“Tell me,” the priest invited, soft voice compelling.
Sneering at the magistrate, she complied.
Time seeped slowly into focus, displacing the molasses that held him tight. Awareness came to his skin first.
Blinking was a chore. He fought to reconcile his fractured vision and translate the swaddling buzz into sound.
His heart throbbed hotly in his cheek, giving him a way to parse time’s passage. He concentrated on it, gritting his teeth against the vicious pins and needles, sweeping him like a brush fire.
Out of the sensory assault resolved Kassika’s voice.
Relief hared off after the tingling in his limbs.
He recognized the cadence of her story-telling. He must not give away that he’d drifted, else she’d take offense and refuse to finish. So he held his peace and suffered in silence.
“...I had lost my bow and my knife, three citymen...”
Ah, this was rare. Her stories were rarely first-hand.
Staying still, he bent his ear to the tale...
As her words washed over him, the impulse to smile withered. Horrified disbelief seized the limbs time had so narrowly given up.
She painted a vivid picture. A wolf at humanity’s throat, hidden in sheep’s skin. With him neither the wolf nor even the sheep but the skin. A patchwork quilt, stitched from scraps of victims’ lives.
He heard how her Hunt had been wiped out; how she’d resolved to bring him to the city; how she fully expected to unravel what remained of him, revealing the monster within. He listened as she cautioned their unseen audience to have men with spears brought: because the beast would need killing.
His vision grew hazy once more.
He realized he was weeping.
“It was all a lie.”
He hadn’t meant to speak aloud. It was no more than a whisper. But he could feel the room’s startled attention swing toward him. Kassika’s scent spiked. He was glad his tears hid her expression.
“You were never going to help me. I was never your friend. To you, I was never even a person. Helia have mercy,” he realized, “I’ve helped you. You’ve let me help you. To murder me.”
He had no name for the scalding scent pouring off her.
A ringing silence held the room.
“I am afraid you are mistaken, Mistress Blackwater,” a new voice amended. “This boy is known to me.”
That jerked his head up. An older man, in clerical robes. The priest gave him a kindly smile.
“His formative years were spent a stone’s throw from this building. He received his education in the halls of the Holy Mother Temple, here in Tellar. Until the year before last, he was one of our more promising novitiates.”
The man paused for breath.
“Until he disappeared, on a diplomatic mission, to the Renali Kingdom. ‘Lost in the mountains’, was the official report.”
He stared at his advocate, willing the features to familiarity. But however he strained, the priest remained a stranger.
There was supreme satisfaction in the man’s voice as he said, “Welcome home, Marco.”
She stared, stunned.
“I think he’s heard enough of this,” the priest concluded. “Take young Marco down to my carriage. I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Yes, inquisitor.”
Disbelieving, she watched Bearbait troop through the portal, head hanging low but shoulders stiff. The door closed behind them.
“So you see,” the priest continued, turning back to her. “You slander him by suggesting he has fallen under Perdition’s sway. No candidate is less likely to treat with the denizens.”
“I have proof,” she insisted, grasping desperately.
“Oh?” the priest challenged. “Pray tell.”
“He is marked by a seal, worked by our shaman. I can unmake it,” she hoped. “I can draw the beast out, where you can see it.”
“You are capable of such magic, Mistress?”
She nodded. Even without the sifter’s powders, she’d manage. Somehow. She had to. Else all was lost. Her blasted ancestors’ cruel joke: that the krin’s stolen features would be known to the one priest she needed to convince.
“And will you perform it now?”
“If you bring more spears, yes. And dogs, if you have them.”
“You’ve done this before? Turned man into beast?”
She nodded, “In the mountains. There was a big bear. I had not my Hunt, to sing the chants. Nor had I my shaman’s spells. The magic was too weak to strip the krin’s human skin. But it tore. It let out the beast’s strength. It killed the big bear with its hands.”
“I believe you,” the priest mused.
She sighed in relief.
“It appears,” the man continued, “we have no choice.”
His hand gesture was unfamiliar. Yet, she had the impression of hounds, being let off their leashes. She looked to the magistrate.
“Inquisitor, please,” the man ducked, looking uncomfortable. “This is highly, highly irreg–”
“You’ve heard her testimony,” the priest cut in, softly. “As have I. I trust you are not trying to shelter this self-proclaimed practitioner of the heathen arts, my son?”
The magistrate’s jaw worked soundlessly, making his ruff bulge. His mucus-filmed eyes sashayed from the priest to her.
“Kassika Blackwater,” he began, voice quavering. “It is not a punishable offense to hold to a faith other than the Heli one.”
At the priest’s mild glance, the man cringed.
“Not,” the magistrate defended, “since the reign of Emperor Aquinas. However...”
The toad seemed to deflate.
“Stricter laws apply to unconverted citizens. Not only do you claim knowledge of unsanctioned magic, by your own admission you have worked such arts upon an Imperial citizen. Worse: upon an initiate of the Holy Mother Temple. By your own testimony, this adversely affected the victim in both mind and body.
“The law is clear: any magic, not specifically approved by the Temple, or which may be found attempting influence over the living or the dead, fall under the ambit of the Witchery Ban. Therefore, in keeping with our most ancient laws on pagan practitioners, and in pursuance of Imperial proclamation, taking into account all amendments, I find you, Kassika Blackwater, to be guilty of witchery.”
He refused to meet her eyes.
“And I hereby sentence you to summary execution.”
She’d been having trouble following the magistrate’s speech.
“To what?”
“Death,” the priest supplied.
Finally, the magistrate consented to meet her wide eyes.
“The only consolation I can offer,” he shared, moist with sympathy, “is that your end will be swift. Burning will come later.”
She stared, aghast, her ears ringing.
They were going to let the krin live and kill her?!
“Take her away…”
Revolt flashed to rage.
Her heavy manacles and the magistrate’s horrified start kept his neck from her reach. But only just. She took scant pleasure in the way he and his chair went toppling backwards. Then the guard landed on her, pinning her to the desk. More rushed from outside.
She fought them, tooth and nail. But they knew what they were about and had the advantage of her bound hands. They dragged her, kicking and screaming, from the room.
“He’ll kill you all!” she promised, a wild kick upsetting the table and papers. “He’ll kill you all!”
She met the priest’s satisfied eyes as she was wrestled away.
After that, fury stole all facility with the lowland tongue.
PART IV
42nd Year of the Holy Helian Empire
One week’s sail from the Oar-of-Ahag Port
A shout rang from the crow’s nest, stark against the grey sky. He knew too little of their tongue to decipher it. But he could follow the general shift in tension toward the ship’s prow.
“Captain?” he called.
They shared a language and little else. The seafarer didn’t deign to turn from his study of the massive fog bank.
As a one-time shepherd, he distrusted fog. It hid wolves and stole sheep. Since leaving his village, he’d found some wolves carried swords and wanted more than his flock.
“What is wrong?” he worried, joining the man at the rail.
“Another ship.”
“Where?”
The question answered itself. Ahead, sails solidified from the mist. The juggernaut dwarfed their trading vessel, shouldering purposely through the waves.
“Pirates?” he feared.
“Worse,” the captain growled. “Imperials.”
Shouted commands sent the crew scampering aloft. The ship stalled as every bit of sail was doused.
“You’re not going to run?” he questioned.
The captain glowered, “If we turned now, we’d only present a broadside target. They’re not shy of using those wicked rams.”
“They’d hole us?” he shrilled. “But they don’t even know us...”
“Strange notions and unforgiving natures,” the captain agreed.
“So what do we do?”
The man spat sourly, “Submit. And hope we haven’t somehow angered their mad goddess.”
Sailors stood mute as the warship bulled up alongside them.
Soldiers rode down on great coils of rope to lash the vessels together. A ladder unrolled to the deck, bringing more. Several proceeded into the hold with practiced dispassion. An officer alighted last, distinguishable by her grey hair and gathered cape. Her armor, like her face, was scarred and worn.
She boomed something in an unfamiliar tongue. At her shoulder, a soldier (armed with a wax writing pad) translated.
“The admiral would know who commands this vessel?”
Beside him, the captain stirred, “By Helia’s grace, I do.”
“Your rank and commission?” the functionary demanded.
“None, beyond captain of this ship.”
“A civilian trader,” the man made a perfunctory note. “You fly the desert flag. What is your port of origin and destination?”
“We sail from the Oar-of-Ahag, bound for Skorda.”
“Your haul?”
“Spices, mostly. Some silks and fragrant oils. A bit of silverware. I have port papers, authorizing all of it.”
“They shall be checked against the contents of your hold,” the man promised. “You shall explain any shortfall and forfeit any surplus. Now, your crew compliment?”
“Fifteen hands, including myself. Another three, as passengers.”
The officer said something in an aside, eyes roving.
“The admiral would know whether you live in Helia’s light?”
The captain shifted uncomfortably, “I am a humble merchantman, far beneath Helia’s notice. I trade fairly with the Imperials and am grateful for their patrols.”
The officer smiled as this was relayed.
“The admiral says your answer is diplomatic. She asks whether you take issue with the Heli presence in your sovereign waters?”
“Not in the least,” the captain assured. “Our princes do not bestir themselves over the pirate plague, which affects us all.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the remaining crewmen, being herded up from below decks. They looked haggard, as though they’d just been turned out of their hammocks.
Uh-oh, he thought. His master had stayed up late, speaking with their astronomer. He was doubtless still abed.
A question snagged his wandering attention.
“What business do your passengers have in Skorda?”
At the captain’s sidelong glance, he drew breath to speak–
“Get your hands off me! Who are you? What is this?!”
The elderly astronomer appeared, being propelled by one elbow. His protests sputtered out at sight of the warship.
“Master Jepta!” the man spotted him. “What is going on? I was on my way to relieve myself when this… person accosted me! Now I’m being told we are to be tallied. Like goats!”
“Calm yourself, learned master,” he implored. “These soldiers are from the Heli Empire, here to conduct an inspection.”
Inspection? the scholar mouthed, looking nonplussed.
“One of the passengers,” the functionary concluded. “What is your principal profession and the purpose of your journey?”
