Before They Are Hanged

“We’re getting nowhere!” snapped Vitari, tossing the black iron back in the brazier and sending up a shower of sparks. “We tried blades, we tried hammers, we tried water, we tried fire. She won’t say a word. Fucking bitch is made of stone.”

“Softer than stone,” hissed Severard, “but she’s nothing like us.” He took a knife from the table, the blade briefly flashing orange in the darkness, leaned forward and carved a long gash into Shickel’s thin forearm. Her face barely even twitched while he did it. The wound hung open, glistening angry red. Severard dug his finger into it and twisted it round. Shickel showed not the slightest sign of being in pain. He pulled his finger out and held it up, rubbed the tip against his thumb. “Not even wet. It’s like cutting into a week-old corpse.”

Glokta felt his leg trembling, and he winced and slid into the spare seat. “Plainly, this is not normal.”

“Unnerthatement,” grunted Frost.

“But she’s not healing the way she was.” None of the cuts in her skin were closing. All hanging open, dead and dry as meat in a butchers shop. Nor were the burns fading. Charred black stripes across her skin, like meat fresh from the grill.

“Just sits there, watching,” said Severard, “and not a word.”

Glokta frowned. Can this really be what I had in mind when I joined the Inquisition? The torture of young girls? He wiped the wet from under his stinging eyes. But then, this is both much more and much less than a girl. He remembered the hands clutching at him, the three Practicals straining to pull her back. Much more and much less than human. We must not make the same mistakes we made with the First of the Magi.

“We must keep an open mind,” he murmured.

“Do you know what my father would say to that?” The voice croaked out, deep and grinding raw, like an old man’s, oddly wrong from that young, smooth face.

Glokta felt his left eye twitching, the sweat trickling under his coat. “Your father?”

Shickel smiled at him, eyes glinting in the darkness. It almost seemed as if the cuts in her flesh smiled with her. “My father. The Prophet. Great Khalul. He would say that an open mind is like to an open wound. Vulnerable to poison. Liable to fester. Apt to give its owner only pain.”

“Now you want to talk?”

“Now I choose to.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Now that you know it is my choice, and not yours. Ask your questions, cripple. You should take your chances to learn when you can. God knows you could do with them. A man lost in the desert—”

“I know the rest.” Glokta paused. So many questions, but what to ask one such as this? “You are an Eater?”

“We have other names for ourselves, but yes.” She inclined her head gently, her eyes never leaving his. “The priests made me eat my mother first. When they found me. It was that or die, and the need to live was so very great, before. I wept afterwards, but that was long ago and there are no tears left in me. I disgust myself, of course. Sometimes I need to kill, sometimes I wish to die. I deserve to. Of that I have no doubts. My only certainty.”

I should have known better than to expect straight answers. One almost feels nostalgic for the Mercers. Their crimes, at least, I could understand. Still, any answers are better than none. “Why do you eat?”

“Because the bird eats the worm. Because the spider eats the fly. Because Khalul desires it and we are the Prophet’s children. Juvens was betrayed, and Khalul swore vengeance, but he stood alone against many. So he made his great sacrifice, and broke the Second Law, and the righteous joined with him, more and more with the passing years. Some joined him willingly. Some not. But none have denied him. My siblings are many, now, and each of us must make our sacrifice.”

Glokta gestured at the brazier. “You feel no pain?”

“I do not, but plentiful remorse.”

“Strange. It’s the other way around for me.”

“You, I think, are the lucky one.”

He snorted. “Easy to say until you find you can’t piss without wanting to scream.”

“I hardly remember what pain feels like, now. All that was long ago. The gifts are different for each of us. Strength, and speed, and endurance beyond the limits of the human. Some of us can take forms, or trick the eye, or even use the Art, the way that Juvens taught his apprentices. The gifts are different for each of us, but the curse is the same.” She stared at Glokta, head cocked over to one side.

Let me guess. “You can’t stop eating.”

“Not ever. And that is why the Gurkish appetite for slaves is never-ending. There is no resisting the Prophet. I know. Great Father Khalul.” And her eyes rolled up reverently towards the ceiling. “Arch Priest of the Temple of Sarkant. Holiest of all whose feet touch the earth. Humbler of the proud, righter of wrongs, teller of truths. Light shines from him as it shines from the stars. When he speaks it is with the voice of God. When he—”

“No doubt he shits golden turds as well. You believe all that rubbish?”

“What does it matter what I believe? I don’t make the choices. When your master gives you a task, you do your best at it. Even if the task is a dark one.”

That much I can understand. “Some of us are only suited to dark tasks. Once you’ve chosen your master—”

Shickel croaked dry laughter across the table. “Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same words, and all the while we know as little of the reasons why as does the dust we return to.” Her head sagged sideways and a gash in her shoulder opened up as wide as a mouth. “Do you think I like what I have become? Do you think I do not dream of being as others are? But once the change has come, you can never go back. Do you understand?”

Oh, yes. Few better. “Why were you sent here?”

“The work of the righteous is never-ending. I came to see Dagoska returned to the fold. To see its people worship God according to the Prophet’s teachings. To see my brothers and sisters fed.”

“It seems you failed.”

“Others will follow. There is no resisting the Prophet. You are doomed.”

That much I know. Let us try another tack. “What do you know… about Bayaz.”

“Ah, Bayaz. He was the Prophet’s brother. He is the start of this, and will be the end.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Liar and traitor. He killed his master. He murdered Juvens.”

Glokta frowned. “That is not the way I heard the story.”

“Everyone has their own way of telling every story, broken man. Have you not learned that yet?” Her lip curled. “You have no understanding of the war you fight in, of the weapons and the casualties, of the victories and the defeats, every day. You do not guess at the sides, or the causes, or the reasons. The battlefields are everywhere. I pity you. You are a dog, trying to understand the argument of scholars, and hearing nothing but barking. The righteous are coming. Khalul will sweep the earth clean of lies and build a new order. Juvens will be avenged. It is foretold. It is ordained. It is promised.”

“I doubt you’ll see it.”

She grinned at him. “I doubt you will either. My father would rather have taken this city without a fight, but if he must fight for it then he will, and with no mercy, and with the fury of God behind him. That is the first step on the path he has chosen. On the path he has chosen for all of us.”

“What step comes next?”

“Do you think my masters tell me their plans? Do yours? I am a worm. I am nothing. And yet I am more than you are.”

“What comes next?” hissed Glokta. Nothing but silence.

“Answer him!” hissed Vitari. Frost hauled an iron from the brazier, the tip glowing orange, and ground it into Shickel’s bare shoulder. Foul-smelling steam hissed up, fat spat and sizzled, but the girl said nothing. Her lazy eyes watched her own flesh burn, without emotion. There will be no answers here. Only more questions. Always more questions.

“I’ve had enough,” snarled Glokta as he seized hold of his cane and struggled up, squirming in a painful and