Outcasts of the Worlds Read online

  Satisfied, she smiled tiredly. “I welcome you then to the sacred cathedral of Cordom. I am High Priestess Chariska Jerhas.”

  “I’m called Flynn. My friends over there are Jean and Mack.”

  “They are your escorts, then?” She looked past Flynn for a moment, then back to him. “I mean no offense, but I cannot imagine that one of your kind so recently civilized would be left to find his way alone.”

  “Ah, not exactly. We’re all new here. We’ve had a long journey, and, well …” Flynn peeled back a damp article of clothing in demonstration, “we got splashed pretty roughly on the way in.”

  “There’s an inn just down the main road—”

  “We’re also broke,” Flynn added. At her bewilderment, he clarified. “We don’t have any money.”

  “That … wasn’t very responsible of them.” She was puzzled.

  Turning away from Flynn, she paced down the aisle in thought. Pausing partway, she walked back over and studied him from head to toe. The look on her face said it was not enough for her. Reaching out, she brushed first across his woolen arms before reaching up and feeling his pointed, gnarled ears. Flynn felt his heart quicken. It was not that her touch was erotic—she was investigating him, with as much investment as a piece of furniture.

  “You really are different from us …”

  “Are you allowed to get this close to a man?” Flynn asked.

  “I’m High Priestess to the Goddess,” Chariska told him with disinterest. “There is very little I’m not allowed to do.” She smiled to add, “Beyond the obvious moral trespasses, of course.”

  “Of course,” Flynn agreed.

  “I’ve room in my home for company, if you like. I’ll accommodate you and your friends.” Her tone suggested she wanted something in return, and so Flynn asked.

  “I’d like your time,” she explained. “I’d like to ask you about where you’re from, about your people. What they’re like and what they were like before the Saryu came to enlighten them.”

  Minutes earlier, Flynn had never even heard of the beastmen to the south, let alone known of the isles in that direction. He knew nothing about their culture or their situation, and nothing yet about just how much Chariska knew other than that she had little clue how a beastman likely appeared.

  “A generous exchange,” Flynn nodded. In a difficult bid, he’d once managed to sell a man his own car. He expected he could manage this.

  Chariska smiled, pleased at their arrangement, before stretching and letting out a loud yawn. “You’ve had a long journey. I’ve had only a long day. I bid you to fetch your friends and wait outside. I’ll soon be with you.”

  With that, she walked off to the altar and Flynn, left alone, rejoined Jean and Mack.

  “Ya seemed awfully cozy,” Jean commented with a raised eyebrow. “Better than torches and pitchforks though.”

  “She’s curious,” Flynn said dismissively. “But she’s going to help us, so be courteous.”

  “Courteous?” Jean was offended. “I’m the fuckin’ pinnacle of ladylike behavior!”

  Flynn did his best to suppress his laughter, but a wry smile slipped through. Jean twitched, but then her hand loosened. She wasn’t going to punch him for that. At least, not in a church.

  *

  Minutes later, Flynn met Chariska as she slid out the cathedral doors, helping shut them tight behind her. A lantern dangled from her wrist which she lit before bowing to Jean and Mack with the same greeting she’d given Flynn, “Ure dun’as Saryu qi.”

  Their responses were unconvincing. Despite Flynn’s drilling them minutes prior, a garbled mess of “Oooh ray doo news sore you keys?” erupted between them. Flynn was embarrassed, mostly for himself.

  “You should … work on that.” Chariska seemed genuinely bothered. Noticing Jean clutching at her side, she added, “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Ain’t nothin’,” Jean brushed her off. “Just had a rough brush with a cannon. On the ship.” She glanced at Flynn for approval, but he gave none, for to do so was the mark of an amateur. Chariska was left confused by the glances being exchanged.

  “So, beds?” Mack piped in.

  “Well, there’s just the one, actually. I keep a spare room for guests—” she brushed her hair behind her ear and laughed a little as she continued, “though I seldom have any. I’ve also a couch—”

  “Bed,” Jean said, pointing at herself. Then, to Flynn, “Couch.”

  “I don’t get to debate this?”

  “Ya could,” Jean replied, “but that just means I’ll hit ya and take the bed. D’ya wanna get hit?”

  Flynn gestured his rejection of that proposal, and Chariska seized the moment, leading the three through the urban thicket. Introductions were exchanged among the other three, but Flynn otherwise held the conversation as best he could, largely relying on hearsay from sailors he’d met in the past to elaborate on their fictitious voyage. Somewhere in the tale, it came out that Jean was a deckhand, Mack was the ship’s cook, and they’d lost their wages playing dice with a very talented first mate who stank of brine.

  Chariska soon brought them to a home, unremarkable among the growths around it. It was off the main street, standing two stories high before the trunk thinned too far to provide any significant space inside. Producing a heavy, aged key from her robes, Chariska unlocked the door and led the others in. Halting them at the door, she signaled them to wait as she moved around inside, lighting lamps and candles one by one, until a shimmering glow warmed the place.

  Chariska’s home, as it lit up before them, seemed to be made more of books than furniture. The growth she lived in was centuries old, and while the walls were allowed some leeway to warp and bend, the floor was carved to make whatever natural space formed within the tree more comfortable for people to walk upon. And just as these trees conformed to the wants of the people within them, so did Chariska’s books make her home into theirs. They were stacked against the walls, slanting into the curvature when not overtaking corners and snaking around them. One door near the entrance was blocked up to the knob by stacks that leaned but never fell.

  Upon entering, Flynn noticed the couch; his would-be bed rested against the wall, left of the entrance. A carefully positioned lantern on the table beside it suggested Chariska had spent many late nights reading there.

  Beyond the central living area was a kitchen and, to the right of it, a hallway disappeared into the house. Doubtless, the hall led to the washroom and bedchambers.

  Without looking back, Chariska told them, “Wait here. I’ll fetch you each something to wear, and hang your clothes to dry.”

  In her absence, Jean scratched the back of her head. “Should I feel weird for worryin’ we’re gonna have to dress like her?”

  “Is it kinda weird that someone’s house is a big ol’ tree in a city of big ol’ trees which are also houses?” Mack responded.

  “Kinda is.”

  Flynn took the moment to unload his few belongings, particularly the depleted rifle. He set it against the wall (or rather against the books along the wall), where it was innocuously out of sight when Chariska returned with an armful of loose garments and passed them around.

  They spread out, more for space than modesty’s sake, shedding their damp attire. Chariska collected all with haste, hanging them in the back to dry. Flynn found the vanilla clothes loose even on his hirsute frame, and doubted they were Chariska’s personal attire. On the other hand, Mack’s fit pretty well and genderless though the cut of the material was, he suspected they were directly from the priestess’s private wardrobe.

  In the dark of Chariska’s kitchen, at the back of her home, Jean had shed her jacket, tank top, and jeans, and was already clothed in what she’d been given. The priestess knelt on one leg before her, with her hand up the right side of Jean’s shirt. Flynn hung back, unsure what he’d just seen. Chariska took Jean’s hand and stood back up. She leaned in and whispered something in Jean’s ear that sounded like, “Is that bett
er?”

  Jean nodded, touching her own side and looking agitated. As though nothing of note had transpired, Chariska gathered up Jean’s damp clothes and took them out to dry with the rest.

  Flynn moved in discretely. “What happened?”

  “She …” Jean wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she pulled up her shirt, enough to show Flynn where she’d been wounded. Flesh that was bruised and split had been made healthy again, healed as though it had never been harmed. All that remained to mark the injury was the remnants of dry, flaking blood.

  “I’ve known a few halfs that could mend themselves, but …” She let the shirt drop back into place as Chariska returned. Jean, trying to take the high ground, said, “Thanks, Chari.”

  Chariska seemed pleased at the comment. She extinguished one of the lamps she’d lit only minutes earlier and excused herself, disappearing into a nearby hall, toward the bedrooms.

  Mack joined them. “So, what’re we conspiring about?”

  “Nothin’,” Jean brushed the matter aside. “Just … weird. That she’d just bring us in like this.”

  “Not so much,” Flynn countered. “Anyone I ever met smart enough or lucky enough to have a home only brings you in if they want something from you.”

  “So … does she?” Mack asked. There was a pause, so he clarified while Flynn contemplated the question, “Want something from us?”

  Chariska had seemed depleted when they’d first met: Flynn had seen it in her eyes, reflected in the sword she’d cradled in her lap. Whether it was the day’s exhaustion or a deeper cavity in her heart needing to be filled, he could not yet say. She seemed to have enough and more: a home as well as status, and the accompanying securities.

  And yet Flynn had met neither man nor woman who was truly fulfilled. Anyone who had all the comforts only wanted more, from frivolous baubles to sexual depravities. The priestess’s sole request for restitution was his time and perspective, on a matter in which he had neither genuine experience nor expertise. He would need to learn what he could to maintain the lie, for as long as he and his friends were under the priestess’s roof. Falling back on deception so soon after resolving to change his ways sat ill inside, but he had no other currency to barter with. Perhaps along the way he could find something better to leave her, something fairer than what he could give now.

  He answered Mack’s question with a simple, “No. Nothing I’m aware of.”

  Chariska emerged from her room and Jean, either satisfied with the proceedings or wanting to end the discussion, let forth an audible yawn. “I’m all for settling debts, but if there ain’t nothin’ pressing, let’s save it for tomorrow.”

  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Chariska asked as she reentered the kitchen.

  “Naw, we were just wrapping up,” Mack told her. “By the way, Charsy: Which way to the room of bedding?”

  “Oh, down the hall. To the right.”

  Flynn’s companions left with Chariska’s direction and, from her expression, he could see her assumption that two lovers were preparing to cradle in one another’s arms. Though he shared nothing, Flynn knew better; he’d met those like them before, friends who trusted each other through thick and thin in the wastes of Earth, who in finding a space to share would do so, heedless of desire or intimacy.

  “You keep interesting companions,” Chariska observed.

  “It was curious chance that we met.”

  The lantern’s flame flickered dimly along the faded turquoise walls of the central living area, and Flynn brushed his hands along them: holes where nails had been pounded and pulled, the faintest sun-burnt discoloration. His attention fell to hip level, where the tallest stacks of books peaked.

  “We came from different worlds, you know. If not for chance, our paths never should have crossed.” Snatching up a topmost book, Flynn looked at the spine, flipped through the pages. The paper here was soft, tender.

  “Different worlds?” Chariska shook her head in amusement. “I suppose it must feel that way, to move from savagery to sophistication.”

  “You have no idea.” She couldn’t have him more backwards. He closed the book and placed it back atop an adjacent stack. Chariska was quick to notice and step in, moving it back to its correct place.

  “Sorry, I—there’s just an order to all this. I know it doesn’t seem it.”

  “Assuredly.” Her home seemed too shabby for an orator of such prestige, yet too cluttered with possessions for one of a spiritual order. Maybe expectations were different for these Saryu, though. “It’s just you here?”

  “It is, and I welcome the company.” She smiled. “I’m alone here, most days.”

  “I’m surprised, is all—that you would welcome strangers like us in so readily.”

  “I have nothing to fear from brothers and sisters of the church.”

  “Then pardon my asking, but why are you so certain that we’re of the church?” Flynn had gleaned enough already to have an idea, but he needed certainty. Chariska’s home told him that the faith did not exclusively define her. There were no religious markers on the walls, no idols on the tables, only hardcover gateways to worlds other than her own.

  Chariska thought about the question before explaining gently, “There are none here who are not.”

  Of that, Flynn was skeptical; he questioned privately where Cordom kept their degenerates and impoverished. A patrolman’s lantern paused by the window, and neither spoke until the guard passed.

  “It is very late,” she acknowledged. “I have to attend to matters at the cathedral tomorrow, but I hope to pick up with you by midday.”

  “As you wish,” Flynn replied. “Thank you for having us, Priestess.”

  The title came to her in a strange way, and Chariska faltered as if she had something to say but was unsure if she should say it.

  “Something on your mind?” Flynn prompted.

  Hesitantly, softly, she said, “Just Chari.”

  “Chari?” he asked.

  “I like the sound of it. Better than Chariska, better than Priestess. When we can be informal, away from the prying eyes and ears of others … Chari, if you please.”

  “As you like it … Chari.”

  “Good night to you then, southern pilgrim.” With a gentle smile, she turned and left.

  Flynn, alone for the first time since his imprisonment, doused the lamps and lay down on the couch, pondering the stacked books illuminated by the twin beams of moonlight coming through the windows. There were questions, naturally. He needed to know more about this world, wanted to know how Chari had tended Jean’s wounded side, why she didn’t do the same for Mack’s long-savaged eye. He’d have liked the name of this world. Still, Flynn knew never to ask questions he should already know the answer to, and with that he let the matter lie.

  *

  Flynn’s sleep was sound, but it was not pleasant. He found himself stepping upon a stage, dressed as an ordinary man. Flesh-tone tights suppressed his woolen arms, while treated lenses concealed his eyes. The floppy hat he wore covered his ears, and dental caps softened his sharpest teeth. Disguised as he was, he looked more like a parody of a man than the real thing. But he played the part, taking center stage and presenting himself to the audience.

  “I am as common as any of you,” he said to a crowd seated in darkness. They murmured among themselves about how convincing he already was. “But I … I can get you what you need. Trust in me.” Privately, Flynn was appalled at his own delivery. He knew he could do better, and tried again. “Trust. In me.”

  “Well, I know I would,” one said.

  “I trusted him to paint my house,” another replied. “He convinced me plaid was in this season and really, I’ve come to think he was right.”

  The blinding stage lights made it hard to see the audience, but he began to recognize faces in the crowd.

  “I think he forgot his line,” one man murmured.

  He knew these faces. He’d committed each one to memory when there had b
een something of them he needed to know. There must have been hundreds that he’d affected—directly or indirectly. The lie covering his body itched. Being seen like this was becoming unbearable. His eyes burned. Reaching up, Flynn shed the lenses first. A few in the front row gasped, but most couldn’t even tell. It wasn’t enough still, and he discarded the hat next. There were exclamations as he scratched his vulgar ears. The talons he’d concealed slid out effortlessly, and he shredded the elastic fabric covering his arms, his hands, tossing all to the ground. He reached into his mouth, pulling the caps from his incisors.

  The whole crowd was abuzz with discussion.

  “I knew it all along.”

  “So it’s symbolic, right?”

  “I assumed it was an autobiographical piece.”

  “Plaid really was the best color.”

  Rebecca Saul came into focus in the center of the auditorium, looking right at him. There was something shining in her blue eyes, something that seemed moved to see him as he really was.

  Her lips parted to speak.

  *

  The back of Flynn’s neck tightened painfully as he awoke. He knew where he was without pause, and hastened to push himself upright. He tweaked his head to one side, cracking the vertebrae in his neck.

  “Slept better than I did, huh?”

  Jean sat at the coffee table next to the couch, shoveling a piece of egg into her mouth. Flynn sniffed and looked to the kitchen, where he saw Mack, wearing a frilly apron bedecked with grease spatters both ancient and recent.

  “Hiya honey!” he waved.

  “Bad dreams,” Flynn said to Jean, rubbing the rheum from his eyes. “I’m surprised you’re up so soon.”

  “Heard folks outside a bit ago. Got me on edge.”

  A year imprisoned and still she slept like she was on the run.

  “I don’t hear anyone now,” Flynn said as he got up, stretching as he approached the window. Outside, there was not a body in sight, save a few of Cordom’s own breed of chickens. They seemed a little larger and scalier than the birds he’d known on Earth.