Outcasts of the Worlds Page 12

  Mack had taken to cooking what Chari had left in his care, though a few ingredients were wasted in finding the right flavor. Dinner could not have appeared more idyllic, and whatever facade Chari was relying on became something more genuine as the night wore on. Still, Flynn saw a Chariska Jerhas who returned each day to an empty home and let whatever stresses she bore wash away as she cooked enough food for one and sank into her sofa, then deeper still into a book upon it. Where her home was brightest he now saw the dimmest corners, a smile masking weariness that had come upon her at a young age.

  Where Chari sank into peace, Flynn found it more difficult to maintain his composure. He was struck by an odd sense of guilt for a situation he’d neither instigated nor resolved: a woman bleeding out whom he’d known nothing of and never would. Had the woman stuck around longer, spoken, he might have kept some memory of her with him. Such perspective on this underbelly of Saryu culture could be invaluable.

  While they ate, the grim incident was not brought up. In time, he would tell his friends, once Chari was gone and they were free from prying ears. Better to have all the cards before sharing his hand.

  Hours passed in small talk and anecdotes, the cleaning up after dinner, and the steady retirement of one by one. When night fell deepest, nearly on the hour that they had arrived the previous day, Flynn roused himself and slunk out the door. The wind rustled through the foliage above and the city streets were dark, though Flynn now felt better prepared to find his way. He left the smoked spectacles off for comfort, but kept them within easy reach, should one of the night patrol happen upon him. He knew what kind of attention he could draw, and kept out of moonlight while following the invisible tug that showed him the ways between worlds.

  Ignoring the pull to the fountain where they had arrived, Flynn came after a brief journey to Cordom’s marketplace, its numerous stalls shuttered for the night, the goods and people all cleared away. With all the clutter and movement during the day, he hadn’t noticed that there was a road beyond the marketplace, leading higher up the hill than the foliage would let him see.

  He followed the perfect stone path as far as it would lead him, and came in time to see a great home atop the hill. It was not a tree, grown and carved like the others in Cordom, but rather a place of stone like the cathedral, albeit ridged and stout rather than round and towering. The property was gated and guarded by the same sort of men that patrolled the boulevards and byways the manor overlooked.

  Reaching out, Flynn attempted to trace where the way from TseTsu lay, though he could not be certain of distance or position. “Strange …” he murmured. He had not yet reached the top of the hill, but given the angle of the pull at his senses, the conduit had to lie somewhere beneath ground level. “Is it somewhere beyond?”

  Grasping for options, Flynn spied a tree home just back down the path. At returning, he circled it, looking for the best angle of approach. Hoping he wasn’t about to do something that would end with him looking very stupid, he let his claws out, planted them in the outer trunk, and began to climb steadily, quietly. A faint fire lit in his hands from the strain. His boots offered little purchase, and he had to be careful, lest his feet slip and make the pain worse. He had never done this before, never had the chance or a reason to try. The fear that his bones would rip and tear away from his fingers began to subside, although he used every branch or knothole he could find to help his ascent.

  Higher up, past where anyone could live, Flynn struck more bravely, exerting his arms with broader strokes and climbing more quickly. He found a great branch above, large and wide enough to support his weight safely. If the view was dizzying, any effect it would have had on Flynn was muted by his time in Civilis. Looking down at his claws, he was relieved to find them no worse for wear. His fingers were sore and red, but his talons were unblemished and uncompromised. The length of each blade was nearly as great as the digit it extended from, following the minor knuckles past the tip of each finger. A membrane bridged the blades, as hard as the bone to which it was also connected.

  Flynn drew the blades back into his fingers, which stiffened as always. The membrane softened after a moment inside his skin and he flexed his digits, making a fist to ensure things had normalized. Satisfied, he resumed his business, tracing an arm forward and searching his senses for the way out of TseTsu. It was not beyond the manor, as there lay only the sea. To his best guess, it was underground. He questioned how deeply the place might go, what they did with such space, and why such a path had been opened there in the first place. But then, all the locations were inexplicable when he thought about it.

  That the passages were old was not in question, nor was the fact that few other than Flynn—and perhaps he alone—could find and breach them. Considering the assumed age of these routes, he began to believe that maybe it was not that they were placed to be strange or inconvenient. Perhaps they had once been sensible, dignified outlets. It might have been that the ways between worlds had always been consistent and it was just the worlds themselves that had changed.

  *

  Climbing down proved more difficult than up, Flynn discovered. He tried twice to pierce the bark shallowly and slide down, but quickly stopped both times and plunged his claws in deeply to mute the noise it made. The descent seemed to take twice as long, now that the adrenaline had dulled. Just the same, Flynn managed to reach the ground unnoticed, traipsing out through the garden and making his way back to Chari’s. He found her home unlocked as he’d left it, and slipped inside as silently as he’d departed. Turning his back to the dark living area, Flynn made sure to shut and lock the door. A match struck and a sudden flame licked the room; his hands cast shadows on the lock as he withdrew them.

  Chari reposed on the couch, a glowing lamp dangling from her hand, which she then set on the ground without a noise. The look on her face betrayed that she wanted something from him, but she was no longer decided as to what. Flynn let out a sigh of relief, his heart slowing as quickly as it had sped.

  “Have a pleasant evening’s stroll?” She reached aside to pluck a tin cup from the coffee table, taking a sip before setting it back down. “I was worried something had startled you away. But I noticed Jean and Mack remained—”

  “I’m not running out on anyone,” Flynn told her. He thought of his friends, their temperaments and capriciousness, and added, “Though … I question whether they’d give the same courtesy, if they fully knew me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s … more complicated than I’m willing to share.” Flynn changed the subject, removing the spectacles from his pocket and setting them down. “I wanted to ask you about these.”

  “What of them?”

  “That woman in the square, Carmella. She had a pair just like them. They’re made for Inquisitors, aren’t they?”

  Chari took the spectacles in her hands, cradling them nostalgically. Flynn waited patiently; the question had been nagging at him from the moment the sword was thrust through the woman’s back in the execution square. He believed this, if nothing else, she would share.

  “They are,” she confirmed at last. “My mother was Inquisitor of Cordom for many years. She drew confessions from the heretics as water from a well, and cut them down in the public eye.”

  “Then that sword you were holding in the church? It reminds you of your mother?”

  “Yes.” A tiny falter in her voice gave the lie away.

  Whatever the truth, it was something she was not ready or able to share. Chari set the spectacles down before Flynn and continued. “My father was a crusader, paving the way for the missionaries of today. It should come as little surprise then that I’ve lost both parents in service to the church.”

  “So you’re alone.”

  “I have the church and all the people of Cordom looking down on me,” Chari replied. “And when I stand on the altar, I can feel Hapané’s gaze as well.”

  Although he was dissatisfied with her answer, Flynn knew she would not be challenged
on it. So he asked a different question: “How does the Inquisitor find her targets?”

  “I’ve seen it happen in many ways,” Chari said. “At times, a slip of the tongue is all it takes to draw notice to oneself. But more often, news reaches her because all of Cordom acts as her eyes and ears. We do not suffer dissent in this city.”

  Or distinction, Flynn thought.

  Chari sat up, finishing her drink and setting the empty tin cup back on the coffee table before taking up the lamp, careful to keep the flame low. She looked into Flynn’s catlike eyes, which widened to accommodate the growing darkness.

  “Well, I’ve duties to attend to tomorrow morning, so I should like to get my night’s rest now,” she told him. “Pleasant dreams.”

  Flynn was abandoned to the dark as the lantern’s light faded down the hall and then was vanquished entirely as she shut her bedroom door behind her. She would be out tomorrow morning, and again in two days’ time to preach her gospel. It seemed that would be the best time to make their move, when so many people would be out of the streets and huddled together in one storied building.

  All that burdened Flynn now was how to make amends with Chariska Jerhas, one liar to another.

  *

  Eager to leave, Chari concluded her affairs at the cathedral early the following morning. She was under no obligation to stay, as lesser priestesses and the occasional priest could attend to the worries of Cordom’s denizens as easily as she. Chari felt more secure when attending, though, and made a point to do so, even on those days when she really didn’t wish to. There were many such days.

  But she left early on this one just the same. As always, the trip to the marketplace took twice as long as she’d have liked, as she was frequently stopped by those who would give thanks or beg blessings. As on any day a thousand times before, the marketplace was bustling with life, and Chari knew without fail that it would be lively a thousand times again. The people of Cordom, and the Saryu as a greater faith, did not allow things to become stagnant or fall to the wayside; they were a persistent people whose acts echoed her cries for growth and stewardship.

  The novelty of her unexpected guests had waned a little, though she was still glad for the company. None of them seemed particularly savvy in the ways of the Saryu, but if all were new inductees and the Goddess was in their hearts, she had little room for protest. She was relieved that Flynn did not seem so cagey as the thousands to whom she regularly preached; she had taken a great risk in confiding even what she did, and the Inquisitor would show limited mercy for the courtesy of Chariska’s rank.

  As she brushed through the produce, oblivious to the greengrocer’s ear-to-ear smile at seeing her, she wondered if they planned to stay in Cordom much longer, or whether they had some other destination to move on to. Better to find out soon, and brace for life’s return to routine.

  “Charsy?”

  With a start, Chari realized that she hadn’t been paying attention to anything around her. Mack was standing right next to her, holding an orange sanyan in his hand, checking to see if the fruit was yet ripe.

  “Ure dun’as Saryu qi, Mack,” she said, proffering the standard bow. Mack hesitated, unsure what to do for a moment, then settled on placing the sanyan back in the basket (and trying not to lose track of that specific one), repeating the bow, and saying something that sounded more like “Ure dun’as Saryu que?”

  He’d improved, to a certain degree. She’d caught glimpses, heard Flynn urging them all to practice that they might better pass among the common folk. The utterance could hold significant weight between fellow Saryu—the weight of the Goddess’s praise for earthly works in her name. But it was good enough. Most Saryu were too in love with the sound of the words to know that weight.

  Before Mack could seek it out, Chari took the sanyan he’d dropped and put it back in his hands, which he clutched to his chest instinctively.

  “What brings you here this morning?” she asked.

  “Indulging increasingly in inexpensive items!”

  Chari, taken aback by his boisterousness and bravado, could only blink pointedly in response. Mack seemed equally dismayed, but not deterred, and tried again.

  “Searching surreptitiously, seeking superior sundries!”

  “You’re … shopping?”

  Mack nodded, turning his blind eye to her and going back to rifling through the sanyans. “Yes. I am that.”

  “I can cook tonight, you know,” she offered. She’d never had to play hostess before, and wanted the chance to tend to company smaller and more intimate than the thousands to whom she preached.

  “It’s okay, really,” Mack insisted. “I haven’t gotten to cook in forever! And your cutlery is the cleanest I’ve ever used!”

  “I thought you were the cook on the ship you came in on?”

  “And have you ever crafted quality cuisine on a careening canoe?” Mack shook his head. “No, no. That wasn’t cooking! It was slop!” He squeezed a sanyan in his hand. “Besides, I think I’m on a roll! Jeannie really dug last night’s dinner and I bet I can double it up!”

  Chari found herself inspecting Mack’s every feature with an abrupt curiosity. She had met Flynn first, and in truth had found her interest caught by something exotic and primal all at once. There was something intrinsically profane about the idea of a beastman, but now that she really looked, even this golden haired boy before her—more bone than muscle—had an appeal that set him apart. It was a shame about the mess that was his eye—an ugly wreck of a wound too old to mend.

  Abnormalities and malformations aside, her guests were stitched from the same cloth as the masses to whom she preached. Whatever deeper gratification she yearned for, she would not find it with them, and so she excused herself to shop around some more, taking a sanyan and paying the grocer her half-hearted thanks. The bitter skin and sweet meat of the fruit was followed by a hard and unyielding core, and she indulged in them seldom because the offerings were ultimately shallow. This time was no different; she took what she could and discarded the rest.

  After some perusing, Chari found herself at a bookseller’s stall. There were shops in town, of course, whose shelves were packed and whose offerings were better, but texts more unique and valuable were rare in such locales. Better, in her experience, to check around.

  She thumbed mainly through the novels, passing over The Noble Nadd and A Fortnight’s Rest and Then on the Highway Again, as all were in heavy circulation and none were particularly good. Telling and Rupture seemed banal; she felt one-word titles did very little to inspire the imagination. The row of fiction ended too quickly, leading to a stack of leather-bound volumes for more worldly studies. She was set to thumb through the former once more, to see if something more interesting had been overlooked, when a title caught her eye: Bizarre Horrors of the Southern Isles. Taking up the book, she flipped through it briefly, finding it packed with haphazard narrative and numerous wood engravings produced supposedly by the book’s author during his excursion.

  Chari chuckled to herself. It was probably full of factual inaccuracies, given the age of the text and the writer’s apparent tendency toward exaggeration. She thought perhaps she and Flynn could have a laugh over it, assuming he wasn’t sensitive about outdated and racist depictions of his own people. Then she gave pause, deciding she should at least skim the thing herself first. There was significant foxing on many of the pages and as much wear on the binding, but it was still priced higher than seemed right. She assured the seller that the church would reimburse him the volume’s worth and he gave her a smile and a wave.

  “At your leisure, priestess,” he said, with a subtle nervousness that begged her not to forget.

  Chariska flipped through the pages briefly once more before placing the book in her satchel, along with the texts she’d taken to the cathedral that morning. She often spent her hours handpicking passages from insightful works and plagiarizing clever phrases from lesser-known novels in a desperate bid to keep each sermon fresh an
d stay one step ahead. Bizarre Horrors of the Southern Isles seemed likely to be of little use for business or pleasure, and was a rare addition to her library for it.

  At a butcher’s stall ahead, she saw him.

  There was no doubt he was one of her congregation, for although she didn’t recognize him, everyone was part of her congregation. His boyish looks placed him a few years younger than her, but his lean, muscular frame suggested he was training to become part of Cordom’s guard. It was a lowly position taken by those with few other prospects—one that took men as the church most often took women—but an honored one nonetheless. His back shifted to face her as he spoke to someone else and the sword revealed by his side confirmed her suspicions.

  Chari made her way over and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned, merely surprised at first, until his eyes met hers.

  “High Priestess!” He knelt as quickly as the words fell from his lips.

  “Up, up,” Chari said impatiently, softly, beckoning him to rise. He complied, uncertain, unsteady. She studied him from head to toe, and found that she liked the look of him as much up close. “Come along. If you had any obligations to attend to, I shall vouch for you.”

  The young man gave little protest, and it seemed he had nothing so important that it couldn’t be missed. She didn’t bother taking his name, as she’d have no use for it in a few hours. She hoped Flynn and Jean had stepped out as Mack had. She needed some catharsis and didn’t wish to be quiet in getting it.

  *

  Jean kept her jacket zipped and her hands planted firmly in her pockets as she kept pace with Flynn. Every rustle of the leaves above launched a new fear, and whatever comfort the trees had brought was since shattered. It was in her to run, and she tensed with the urge.

  “You’re drawing attention to yourself,” was all he said.