I lifted my sabre to the fire so that the heathens could see the red lacquer scabbard, gilded disc guard and long braided hilt.
“From that day forward, I was a freed man—a member of the crew truly. I still drove the slaves, yet now my suppers were spent in the mess with the other men: Yin and the Vagabond, Gold Jacket, even the captain on occasion after a particularly successful raid. And there were many. During my few years on the sea, we seized two ships, more than doubled our crew, and halved the natives on the coasts of my homeland. But all good thing must come to an end. Slaves became harder and harder to find as Tsaazaari pirates followed our success, and at the same time, a flux of Messaii flooded the market.
“It was the end of summer when we docked in Gautama’s capital harbor for the final time with three empty vessels and a spent war chest. Captain Feng and his closest men met that evening, and we agreed over rum that our life together had reached its end. One ship went to Gold Jacket, as did several of the crew, though the other two were sold and the profit split among us. Most of us, anyway. The Vagabond refused his share, as did I, for fear of what gold might do to our souls. But there, we parted ways—he to the bamboo forests of the west and I to the northern mountain boarder. We never saw each other again.”
“Do you think he’s still out there?” the young Messah asked.
“I believe he is, to this day; though I’d hate to be the one to come across him now.”
“But weren’t you friends?”
And I replied, “That, and a worthy challenge. Had he gone north and I, west, I don’t doubt he’d have massacred most of Qi Shi Temple looking for a fight.”
“The abbot would have beat him,” Adnihilo spat with a smile.
Our eyes locked over the fire. “He certainly beat me. Now, where was I?….That’s right—the mountain. I didn’t know about Qi Shi Temple at the time, but it’s the only place to provision before the descent, and I was well out of food and water by then. Of course, they didn’t want to let me in at first. I don’t blame them. I was filthy as my linens stained black with old blood, and my hair and beard were no better in matted knots. I wouldn’t have opened the gates either, but I pounded anyway.
“First day got me nowhere, so the next morning I waited instead. I figured someone would poke his head over the wall to check if I’d left, and I was right. They sent Brother William, who the initiates called Gwei Lo. He was the one to peer over the gates, and when we saw each other, we just gaped for a while wondering how two foreign devils arrived at such a place.
“Gwei Lo made me clean up before granting me entry. I had to cut my hair and wear their robes and listen to their ascetic babbling. It would have been worth it if just for the food, but then they started teaching me their Gautaman boxing. You see, I thought I was good because I’d killed a couple men in the chaos of a melee. The monks taught me something else. They put me through Hell before I’d even discovered God, but I remembered the man that Yin flogged to death. I remembered and worked and prayed until I made it in front of the abbot in his billowing orange pants and his smirking bald head. Bastard hit me so hard that for days I thought I was a dead man. I might have been if not for their medicine. The initiates taught me how to apply it to myself, then once I was healed, the abbot showed me his trick.” The half-blood winced at that, as I grinned and finished, “And that’s about it—down the mountain and into the desert, the same way you did.”
“That’s it?” begged Adam. “You didn’t even tell us where you got that giant sword?
“What? That wasn’t enough? You heathens are as bad as Mephistine hedons.”
“Why do you keep calling us that?” It was Adnihilo who spoke, and the bishop who answered.
“Cause they’re all a bunch of heretics. We get this shit in Pareo all the time, some raving lunatic thinking he’s the manifestation of God. These fools are no different.”
“Not at all,” whispered Jordan, hardly louder than the crackling flame. “Kashim and I serve separate Lords. We’re heathens in his eyes as well, just of a different sort.” He turned to me. “Kashim, why don’t you explain?”
“They’ll never believe me anyway.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Adnihilo, glancing toward the priestess then the bishop.
“So, you truly want to know?” I said, staring at each of them in turn, ending with the witch. “May I,” I asked, “Oh Mother of old Iisah?” She said nothing, and I did not wait for her permission. “So here it is, the final line in the song of Kashim the Dreamer—The Death of the Mad Dog—resurrected in the red Tsaazaari sands by a true God apart from that nefarious demiurge.
“I first heard his voice in the tides of Umlomo and again in the pale moon on the night of the solstice. The third time, his words came from inside, and it was only then that he revealed himself. The horror. It’s a terrible thing to look upon the face of God—that endless maw of the Blind Leviathan—jaws open, eyes focused, unfathomable insights spilling into mind. My tongue unraveled in speech I’d never learned: the ancient words of Babylon and the eternal Messaii. And I saw the fate of greater beings—serpents slain for the sake of prophecy: Light Bringer and Dark Seeker and Deep Sea; he showed me their fates and gave me the sword of King Luthor to safeguard the seven seals withheld
