Tome of the Undergates

‘I left my temple two years ago,’ she began.

‘On pilgrimage,’ he said, nodding.

She returned the gesture, mentally scolding herself for not realising he would know such a thing. All servants of the Healer left the comfort of their monasteries on pilgrimage after ten years of worship and contemplation. This, they knew, was their opportunity to fulfil their oaths.

She had been given ample wounds to bind and flesh to mend, many grieving widows to console and plague- stricken children to help bury, and had offered many last rites to the dying. Since joining her companions, the opportunity for such services had doubled, at the very least.

‘But there are always more of them,’ she whispered to herself.

‘Hm?’

She looked up. ‘Forgive me, it’s just. .’ She grimaced. ‘I have a hard time seeing my purpose, Lord Emissary. My associates, they-’

‘Your companions, you mean, surely.’

‘Forgiveness, Lord Emissary, but they’re something akin to co-employees.’ She sneered. ‘I share little in common with them.’

‘And that’s precisely what troubles you.’

‘Something. . something like that, yes.’ She cleared her throat, regaining her composure. ‘I’ve aided many and I’ve no regrets about the God I serve or what he asks of me. . I just wish I could do more.’

He hummed, taking another sip of his drink.

‘We’ve done much fighting in our time, my comp-them and myself. Sometimes, we’ve not done the proper work of the Healer, but I’ve seen many fouler creatures, some humans, too, cut down by them.’

And it had started as such a good day. .

Lenk hadn’t planned on much: a breakfast of hard tack and beans, a bit of time above deck, possibly vomiting overboard before dinner. Nothing was supposed to happen.

‘Unfair.’

The voice rang, steel on ice. His head hurt.

‘Cheaters. Called to it.’

‘To what?’ he growled through the pain.

‘Coming.’

‘What is?’

He felt the shadow over him, heard iron-shod boots ringing on the wood. He whirled and stared up into the thin slit of an iron helmet ringed with wild grey hair that was a stark contrast to the two young, tattooed hands folded across an ironbound chest.

‘Oh, hell,’ he whispered, ‘you sneaky son of a-’

‘Manners,’ Rashodd said.

An enormous young hand came hurtling into his face.

It was a bitter phrase to utter, but it came freely enough. She had learned many years ago that not everyone deserved the Healer’s mercy. There was cruelty in the world that walked on two legs and masqueraded behind pretences of humanity. She had seen many deserved deaths, knew of many that were probably occurring above her at that moment.

While she sat below, she thought dejectedly, waiting quietly as others bled and delivered those richly deserved deaths.

‘I heal wounds,’ she said, more to herself than the priest, ‘tend to the ill and send them off, walking and smiling. Then they return to me, cold and breathless in corpse-carts. I heal them and, if they don’t go off to kill someone themselves, they’re killed by someone who doesn’t give a damn for what I do.’

She hesitated, her fists clenching at her sides.

‘Lenk, Kataria, Dreadaeleon, Gariath,’ she said, grimacing, ‘even Denaos. . they kill a wicked man and that’s that. One less wicked man to hurt those who Talanas shines upon, one less pirate, bandit, brigand, monstrosity or heathen.’

‘And yet there is no end to either the wounded or the wicked,’ Miron noted.

Asper had no reply for that.

‘Tell me, have you ever taken a life?’ The priest’s voice was stern, not so much thoughtful as confrontational.

Asper froze. A scream echoed through her as the ship groaned around her. Her breath caught in her throat. She rubbed her left arm as though it were sore.

‘No.’

‘Were I a lesser man, I might accuse those who were envious of the ability to take life so indiscriminately of being rather stupid.’ He took a long, slow sip. ‘Given my station, however, I’ll merely imply it.’

She blinked. He smiled.

‘That was a joke.’

‘Oh, well. . yes, it was rather funny.’ Her smile trembled for a moment before collapsing into a frown. ‘But, Lord Emissary, is it not natural to wish I could help?’

His features seemed to melt with the force of his sigh. He set the clay cup aside, folded his hands and stared out through the mess’s broad window.

‘I have often wondered if I wasn’t born too soon for this world,’ he mused, ‘that perhaps the will and wisdom of Talanas cannot truly be appreciated where so much blood must be spilled. After all, what good, really, can the followers of the Healer be when we simply mend the arm that swings the sword? What do we accomplish by healing the leg that crushes the innocent underfoot?’

The question hung in the air, smothering all other sound beneath it.

‘Perhaps,’ his voice was so soft as to barely be heard above the rush of the sea outside, ‘if we knew the answers, we’d stop doing what we do.’

He continued to stare out at the roiling seas, the glimmer of sunlight against the ship’s white wake. She followed his gaze, though not far enough; his eyes were dark and distant, spying some answer in the endless blue horizon that she could not hope to grasp. She cleared her throat.

‘Lord Emissary?’

‘Regardless,’ he said, turning towards her as though he had been speaking to her all the while, ‘I suggest you spare yourself the worry of who kills who and work the will of the Healer as best you can.’ He plucked up his teacup once more. ‘Do your oaths remain burning in your mind?’

‘“To serve Talanas through serving man.”’ She recited with rehearsed confidence. ‘“To mend the bones, to bind the flesh, to cure the sick, to ease the dying. To serve Talanas and mankind.”’

‘Then take heart in your oaths where your companions take heart in coin. We all serve mankind in different ways, whether we love life or steel.’

It was impossible not to share his confidence; it radiated from him like a divine light. He was very much the servant of the Healer, a white spectre, stark and pure against the grime and grimness surrounding him, unsullied, untainted even as taint pervaded.

And yet, for all his purity, she knew he was her employer and her superior, not her companion, no matter how deeply she might have wished him to be. She looked wistfully to the companionway, remembering those she had left on the deck.

‘Perhaps it wouldn’t harm any to go up and see what strength I could lend them.’ She turned back to the Lord Emissary. ‘Will you be-’

Her voice died in her throat, eyes going wide, hands frigid as her right clenched her left in instinctive fear.

‘Lord Emissary,’ she gasped, ‘behind you.’

He spared her a curious tilt of his long face before turning to follow her gaze. Though he did not start, nor freeze as she did at the sight, the arch of a single white brow indicated he had seen it. How could he not?