It began with the killing of a single slave, an elderly man with cataracts in his eyes; the priest woman, naked, her empty, sagging breasts swinging low as she bent over and took a knife to him.
Immediately, the atmosphere intensified to a higher pitch. It was as though the priestess had pierced more than a mere physical barrier by the work of her knife, but breached an abstract one too: a skin of the world that stretched over all life, shielding normal eyes from an outer reality devoid of humanity, boundless and alien. The dying man's squeals pierced the night air. The paralysed slaves saw the fate in store for them, as he lay on the deck quivering and gurgling his last breath, bubbles of blood forming on his lips. This slaying, though, was purely the opening act.
The old woman turned and spoke to the younger priest, Kirkus, who stood trembling and staring at the knife in her bloody hands. The priestess snapped her gaze towards a young girl to Rianna's left, pinning her with a glare. 'Up,' said the old woman, with a flick of her head.
Suddenly the girl was able to move. She clambered to her feet – then without warning, she sprinted for the rail.
'Stop!' snapped the old witch. The girl collapsed to her knees, her legs suddenly gone from under her.
'Now, you try,' the old priestess instructed her grandson.
Kirkus fixed his attention on a fat man still clad in the bloodstained apron of a butcher. 'Come here!' he commanded.
The butcher grunted as he sat upright. He looked to the far rail, then to Kirkus before he rose unsteadily to his feet. Growling deep in his throat, he suddenly leapt at the young priest, moving fast despite the bulk of him. 'Stop!' commanded Kirkus, but the man already had a grasp around his neck as his legs collapsed, and he dragged Kirkus down with him.
'Focus, you idiot,' chided the old woman by his side.
Kirkus choked and struggled harder to break free.
'Cease,' snapped the priestess.
The fat butcher released his grip and fell to his knees, palms pressed against the deck, roaring his defiance at the planking in front of his nose.
'I suspect this one was once a soldier,' observed the old woman.
'I know,' replied Kirkus with irritation, massaging his bruised neck. 'He has a tattoo there, on his upper arm.'
'Ah,' she observed. 'A Nathalese marine.'
She stepped lightly behind the old veteran. She fixed her claws against the sides of his head, yanking it back so that he straightened up on to his knees. 'Your eyes,' she suggested into his ear. 'Pluck out your eyes.'
The man spat words of outrage. Still, his hands lifted involuntarily from his sides and rose towards his face. They trembled under an inner struggle of will, but he could not stop them as his fingers curled deep into the sockets of his eyes, and wrenched.
He made a rasping sound but, incredibly, did not scream as his eyeballs popped out like small boiled eggs from their sockets, and fell dangling against his cheeks.
'More like a fat pig for the slaughter,' she said, letting him drop back to the deck.
Kirkus indulged in another loud inhalation from the bowl of narcotics. The old woman moved to his side, stroked his stomach.
Rianna watched with eyes wide. Inside her head she was screaming.
'Do as you please,' said the witch to the young man, her voice husky. 'Tonight you must shed all qualms of conscience still lingering within you.'
The young priest hesitated. He studied the slaves arrayed upon the deck, then turned away again to draw in another breath from the steaming bowl.
'Work yourself up to it,' the old crone suggested. 'We have all night. As I said, do as you please.'
His eyes fell on Rianna, and she tried to look away. But her body was not hers any longer: her eyes would not close for more than a blink.
He passed the bowl to the priestess, then stepped towards Rianna. No sound would come from her throat.
Eager hands ripped away the remnants of her dress. His face was a mask as he stared at the rise and fall of her white breasts, at her nipples stiffened by fear. The seal still rested between her breasts, pulsating as it always did. He fixed his gaze on it, puzzled at first, and then a cool understanding followed.
He bared his teeth, and snapped them at her. At first, she thought he was trying to bite her, but instead he ripped the seal away with an angry jerk. He spat it into the flames of the brazier.
'The flesh is strong,' breathed the young priest foully upon her face.
But by then, Rianna was already dying.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Vendetta 'Where are we going?' demanded Nico as he hurried after Ash into the west wing of the monastery, along the main tiq-panelled corridor, down steps into a dim basement that held casks and boxes and various assortments of stock. Ash moved quietly to the centre of the wooden floor, his form casting a long shadow from the solitary lantern hanging above. Nico stopped by his side. He followed Ash's gaze towards their feet.
The old man took a key from his robe. It was as thin as a carpentry nail, and fine-toothed at one end. He bent to insert it into a hole in the floor that Nico was unable to see. A twist and a click, and suddenly Ash was tugging open a trapdoor that uncovered a stone stairwell and a release of stale air. They descended in silence.
Twelve steps down, they reached a low, damp tunnel, and they followed it to a source of light at its very end.
'We call it the watching-house,' Ash explained softly, as he nodded a greeting to the two long-haired Rshun who knelt, back to back, in the centre of the brightly lit vault they now stood within. A ceiling of white plaster arched high over their heads, an occasional root poking through it to dangle as if lost in the smoky atmosphere. The ceiling curved down to meet a circular periphery of walls plastered in the same sad, damp white.
The walls were lit by countless lanterns, and punctuated by rows of identically tiny alcoves, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Inside many of these alcoves Nico could see the familiar dark shapes of seals hanging from hooks. There were thousands all around.
What might ordinarily have been a solemn experience, standing deep beneath the ground surrounded by their sheer multitude, was instead something creepy and surreal, owing to the fact that all the seals were moving. Nico peered closer at them. It took several moments, as though his mind refused to see things for what they really were, but suddenly the scene snapped into clearer focus and he could see that steadily, perhaps five times in a minute, these thousands of seals were breathing in and out like tiny leathery lungs.
All of them, except for one.
They moved to stand before it, Nico's breath sounding loud in his ears, while Ash explained in a low drone about how it had died during the night, and how he hoped it was merely an accidental or natural death, and not murder and thus requiring vendetta. And, with that, Ash plucked it from its hook and swept out of the watching- house with Nico scurrying in his wake.
They left the monastery at a fast trot.
'Where are we going?' asked Nico, as they turned to hike a path up the valley floor.
'To see a man,' Ash replied over his shoulder. 'A man I should have taken you to visit long before now.'
'So why didn't you?'
The farlander leapt over a small slope of stones, and kept walking without reply. Nico scrabbled up after him, increasing his pace to catch up as the dry grasses clutched at his legs.
'Who is this man?' he called out.
'A Seer. He will read the seal for us, and then tell us what occurred in the night.'
'It's true, then?' panted Nico. 'What the other apprentices say, that he's a miracle-man?'
'No. The Seer merely understands subtle wisdom. With technique, and great stillness, he can do things that others can achieve only by chance, if at all.'
