ON THE day the knells began, the centurions rode into the cobbled hamlet on the coast of Mhu Thulan. A diminutive figure in a purple cloak led the soldiers, and they rode in formation directly for the tallest structure in the village, a great black monolith rising above its neighbours. So concerned with their mission, the riders took no notice of the chiming from the cathedral.
The housekeeper of their destination, however, had noticed. In the five-sided tower, Raine moved quickly through the chambers of the ground floor, the hem of her servant’s dress swishing across exotic shag rugs. The timing was off, tolling two hours early, and the sudden ringing shattered the midmorning quiet Raine cherished. Every morning around ten she took a break from overseeing the other two servants, not to mention fulfilling the many odd requests she received from the master. She sat quietly near the servants’ entrance at the rear and smoked a pipe, sometimes chatting with Hattie, the housekeeper next door.
This morning Hattie had not taken a break, and now Raine hustled through the house to look for her. Hattie, a faithful parishioner of the cathedral and the village gossip, would surely know the reason for the noise. ‘Blasted,’ she said, shaking her head as the sound reverberated within the pentagonal structure. Not only were they mistimed, but the ringing seemed much louder than usual. Those damned zealots, she thought. If only they could carry on in silence and leave the rest be.
Raine reached the grand entrance and put her hand on the knob. The door shook violently, and in surprise, she swung it open. A squat man in purple threw a scroll at her and shoved himself inside; her heel caught the edge of a stone and she fell hard. Pain stabbed her tailbone and shot upward. Her face turned red as her curly hair, and she took in a breath to curse when no less than twelve centurions followed the man in from the street.
Instead, she examined the scroll. It felt warm, and blemishes marred the pale, epidermal parchment. She had just enough time to glance over the flame etched symbols before being jerked up from the cold floor. The centurion’s greaves bit into the soft flesh of her upper arm. Writ of arrest? What was happening?
The little man introduced himself as Morg, High Priest of Yhoundeh.
If he reached five feet it was just by the hairs on his balding pate, and his nose took up most of his face, the wide nostrils flaring as he spoke. Warts decorated his face like a map. He asked after Master Eibon.
‘Writ of arrest?’ She gestured with the scroll. ‘Bloody hell for?’
‘Heresy and blasphemy against the Goddess,’ Morg said. His nasal voice crawled across her brain. ‘He is to be dragged to the capital and will answer to the inquisition. Upstairs, I suppose?’ The priest grinned. Several of his teeth were gold and several were missing. His eyes gleamed with violence, and he gestured to the centurions before moving toward the circling stair.
The group, Morg, Raine, and seven of the armoured men, climbed to the uppermost floor of the tower, Master’s study. Morg’s face reddened as they stood within the empty library.
‘Where is he?’ the priest said. She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off. ‘Look at this ungodliness.’ He gestured to the artwork lining the walls. One, an ancient papyrus behind heavy, protective glass. Another, a twenty first century woodcut depicting a human cast from a cliff into the yawning maw of a gargantuan, frog-like entity. A holographic plate from some distant world hung behind Morg’s back. In like manner, numerous depictions decorated the walls in the various mediums of humanity’s numerable ages.
Overstuffed shelves lined three walls below the art pieces. A desk, carved from wood of dubious origin, stood along the far wall, just below the woodcut.
The remaining centurions stepped into the room, dragging the other two servants, Mariam and Sergei. They had searched the two lower floors and both basement levels of the pentagonal tower. The searchers uncovered no trace of Master Eibon.
‘Where is he?’
Marian and Sergei whimpered. Raine drew in breath, pressed out her chest, and said, ‘Go fuck yourself is where he is.’ She did not see the iron fist that knocked her to the rug. Pulsing black amoebas floated across her vision.
‘Downstairs with them,’ Morg said. His loose robes flapped in the golden rays streaming through the deep windows. With these words, the three servants were dragged to the ground floor and secured to ornate chairs situated around the roaring hearth.
‘What do you plebs know of the inquisition?’ Morg said as the servants trembled in their sweat. ‘Hmm?’
Two centurions mixed a silver powder with water in the cauldron hanging over the flames.
‘Fortunate am I in my double role as grand inquisitor and high priest. I carry out many of the interrogations myself. Imagine my consternation, after devising such ordeals, at finding him missing from this gneiss shamble. Now ladies and gentleman, one of you is going to enlighten me. How much pain any of you suffer is in your hands.
‘You want me gone. I want to be gone, but I need your master. I tell you now, you will all regret it if I am still here by tea time.’
By the time Morg finished, the liquid in the cauldron was bubbling and splashing. The concoction boiled over the rim, sending fetid steam into the air. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he said, taking up a ladle hanging from a nail.
‘Before we begin, would any of you tell me,’ a sigh, ‘where your master is?’
Marian whimpered. Her frizzled hair looked like a mane around her tear streaked face. ‘I’ve no idea where Master has got to,’ she said.
Sergei rambled unknown words in his native tongue. The fire reflected oceans of perspiration on his midnight skin.
The priest bent before Raine. ‘And you?’ She spat and grinned as the globs dribbled down his face. ‘Very well. Good, actually,’ he said. Wiped himself with the hem of his hood. ‘I was hoping to salvage the day. Molten asphaltum does love the flesh. Just watch how a few drops devour it.’ He dipped the ladle into the boiling silver.
Sergei unleashed great, guttural howls as the skin of his shoulder seethed and smouldered beneath the splatter, and then melted like runny candlewax, leaving behind drachma-sized discs of raw muscle and sinew.
‘Compensating for such a tiny pecker must get tiresome,’ Raine said.
Morg recoiled, spilling a few splatters onto the hem of his robe. His ears burning, he patted out his smouldering robe before stomping over to her. He looks like a four-year-old throwing a tantrum, Raine thought.
Glaring, he gripped her cheeks, forced her mouth open. His voice rose octaves higher. He said, ‘Now you will tell me, or I will pour this molten mash down your whore’s throat. What say you, wench? Where is your master?’
She took a few deep breaths to steady her voice. Closed her eyes and forced a laugh. ‘I’ll tell you, Little Man, and should you follow the Master, it will be to your death.’
The priest jerked his hand from her mouth, and pressed his red face close. ‘Where is he?’
‘Upstairs. The study,’ she stammered, and silently cursed herself for the show of weakness.
‘The study is empty.’ He slapped her hard across the face.
Ears ringing and jaw throbbing, she blinked several times to clear out the cobwebs.
‘On the wall above the desk. A…a…the painting hanging there conceals a portal. The woodcut of the God conceals it. Through there he went this morning.’
‘Where does it go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where?’ Another open palm streaked her face.
The pain emanating from Raine’s jaw wormed its way through her psyche, causing anger to bubble once again above the fear. ‘I don’t know where or when that portal goes,’ she said. ‘I’m a gods’ damned maid, not a wizard. If you want cranberry sauce out of Mentantic satin, I have theanswer, but as far as portals go…Sorry Shorty, can’t help you.’
Morg kicked the chair. Pulsing fire erupted from her shoulder joints as she crashed to the floor. Huffing, the priest stomped up the stairs. A pair of centurions hustled to follow. Several minutes passed as Raine fought silently against the pain of her stretched muscles. Soon the two soldiersreturned wearing faces of surprised consternation.
‘He’s gone, Sir,’ one of the pair said to the soldier standing near the hearth.
Several ribbons adorned his chainmail; the higher rank, she guessed.
His bearing seemed to back this up. He stood straight, and his answer was short and concise, full of authority. ‘Gone? Where?’
‘He hopped through the portal thing in the wall.’
‘Show me.’
They marched upstairs, returned. The leader looked around the room.
‘Okay, untie these wretches. Let them go about their work. Pullo, Augustus, and Tio, you three will remain behind to await the Priest’s return. Report any developments to the barracks at once.’ He leaned over Raine’s chair, and she stared defiantly into his upside-down eyes.
‘Now, you, as head servant, shall afford my men every curtesy. They’ll be housed here, and you shall feed them while they wait. In turn, they shall leave you and your subordinates here alive. Do we understand?’
When Raine did not answer, he said, ‘If these terms are not met, I willreturn and burn this hovel to the ground.’ He grinned and spat tobacco juice onto the floor. Splatter tickled her cheek. Laughing, he raised himself up, gestured to the other men, and exited the tower.
As the door slammed, Pullo, a brute with a wicked scar streaking his pocked face, raised her chair from the floor and untied first her, then the other two servants.
‘Okay, bitch.’ Augustus, a string bean with a voice nearly high as Morg’s, slapped her behind. ‘We’re your guests. Make us some tea.’
Raine glared. ‘I’m head of this house. You’ll be served as soon as I’ve tended this man’s wounds.’ She gestured to Sergei’s shoulder.
The centurion stepped forward, opening his mouth to speak, but her gaze never wavered. Instead of forcing the issue, the soldier broke eye contact, paced around the table of thick mahogany, and planted himself on a stool. She heard Pullo and Tio snicker as she and Mariam led Sergei out.
◆ ◆ ◆
DAYS PASSED. Raine stayed cautious as she busied herself with day to day chores, as well as the added work of serving the brutes. More than once, she stepped into a chamber to find Augustus or Tio forcing themselves upon Marian, and even Sergei. She always managed to back the men down, and none of the three raised a hand, a voice, or stepped to her.
Despite being captive within her own residence, she felt in control of most situations.
Curiously, she’d yet to find Pullo taking advantage of the servants, though he was always nearby, like a voyeur. Rarely did he speak to them.
He simply sat or walked around the tower, his eyes scanning every surface.
Always moving and darting. This is the man, she decided, to be wary of.
The other two soldiers are drunken kids playing piggyback, but this one is something else.
On the third morning following Master’s sojourn, the mistimed bells shattered Raine’s daydream. She’d been sitting upon the midnight blue chaise longue in the east corner of the Master’s sitting room, fingering the gold embroidered lions and eagles as she considered her plight. Would either the sorcerer or priest ever return? How long would the centurions stay? And what would happen to them in either case?
But now those incessant bells. In light of the recent turmoil, the errant ringing of that damned morning had vanished from her mind. And if the bells had continued off kilter since, she hadn’t noticed.
The chapel’s scheduled rings happened at noon and midnight daily, plus fifteen minutes before mass on Sabbath. And ten o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday was none of those times. She stormed through the house, glaring at the indolent soldiers. Since she had been interrupted during her last attempt to question Hattie, nothing would deter her again.
Raine found Hattie on the stoop of the sprawling monster next door.
The pale woman stared down the cobbles in the direction of the cathedral.
Her hands wrung a dry towel, and her homemade canvas dress ended inches above her dusty feet. Not all aristocrats paid their servants as well as Raine’s master, and she felt a twinge of sorrow for her friend. The reminderof the ruination of the body and soul at the hands of time and labour struck her.
The ringing, like the boom of distant thunder, shook her. Looking into Hattie’s vacant, hurt, charcoal eyes, Raine nearly lost her nerve, but took a deep breath and spoke up. ‘Hell’s the matter with the bells?’ she said, grimacing at the mingled odours of horse and burnt lacquer that pervaded the street. Salty air blowing off Mhu Thulan did not mask the odours, butinstead mixed with them, creating a heady brew.
Hattie’s eyes did not leave the road. ‘The sun set in the East last night, new pastor arriving today.’
‘New pastor, huh? What happened to the old one?’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Transgressions get the better of ‘im?’
If Hattie caught her remark, she did not react. ‘Didn’t work out.
Reaping’s coming,’ she said in a monotone very unlike her usual squeaky voice.
‘Okay,’ Raine said, as confused as ever by Hattie’s religious mumbo jumbo. After a minute, she added, ‘Well how long they gonna be ringin’ today? I’ve got a tower full of moose to worry with already.’
Once again, she ignored Raine’s attempt at banter. ‘Only a short timebefore silence. I hope I can go down at the next ceremony.’
‘Working pretty hard, huh?’ A chill crept up her spine. Hattie seemed off today, and she could not wait to end the conversation.
Hattie did not reply. The uncharacteristic silence of the street intensified the waves of goose flesh washing over her. ‘Well I’ll chat with ya later, Hattie. Got a household to run.’
She turned to the door, stopped, and inspected the front stoop. Moss crept across the concrete steps and the iron door handle could use a polish.
The herbs growing along the front needed weeding. It had been a wet week, and nuisance plants had taken full advantage. Since Sergei’s shoulder was healing, she would send him out to tend to matters. She must keep up appearances, especially in the master’s absence.
The midnight black tower, blue and white veins streaking across the stone, rose high above its neighbours. According to Master, the city planners had flown into hysterics when he began construction, but in the end… Well, who the hell could stop the wizard?
She shuddered as the door shut behind her, at the thought of Hattie standing in reverent silence and staring toward the cathedral. She tried to busy herself and not think of Hattie or the bells or her Reaping, but to no avail. Finally, the bells fell quiet, but within the stone walls the ringing seemed to echo for hours yet. Or maybe my ears are just ringing, she thought.
As day faded to day the soldiers fell prey to the great devourer of armies: complacency. They were little more than sacks of meat lying around. A little more food to cook and a little more shit to clean, but at least they had gotten bored with attacking and goading the servants.
Yet an air of tension pervaded, and Raine knew the situation would soon come to a head. Men rarely took boredom well, and she resigned herself to planning her course of action. Come what may, she must actbefore the soldiers. Not only for herself, but also for the other two servants, as well as the household. When the master returned, the tower would be shipshape, sans soldiers.
◆ ◆ ◆
THE FOLLOWING week, the cathedral bells rang off and on for hours at a time. Three days straight. The centurions seemed not to mind. Maybe soldiering made one used to being uncomfortable, but Marian and Sergei noticed. She shuffled around crossing herself, and he avoided going outside and mumbled low intonations in his feral tongue.
Finally, Raine could take no more. Ready to explode, she knocked several times on the neighbouring door. A scrawny wisp of a girl answered and informed her that Hattie was missing. ‘Two day ago, she go to the cathedral and…’ She shrugged; the thin bird bones of her shoulders reached to her ears. ‘She never come back.’
‘Never came?’ Raine said, incredulous. ‘Did someone check for her?’
The girl shrugged again and her large eyes looked apologetically up atRaine.
‘Blast it all,’ Raine said. She turned and stepped down the stoop. The door banged shut behind as she moved down street toward the cathedral.
The Seventy Fourth cathedral of Yhoundeh stood in a spidery mass of spires and stained glass. Surpassed in height only by Master’s tower. The awesome sight momentarily took Raine’s breath away. A beat or two passed, she took in a deep breath and ascended the cracked stone steps.
Wonder if the place will catch fire when I step in, she thought and laughed. ‘At least the bells stopped.’ As the statement left her lips, the bells took up again. Raine cried out, felt like pulling her hair.
The dark vestibule amplified the ringing; she felt certain her steps echoed but could not hear them over the resounding noise. Even in the gloom, she thought the floor and walls were of smooth gold. Yhoundeh got some money, she thought between rings. Moving slowly, and unsure why, she eased past the basin of holy water and through a thirty-foot archway.
Into the chapel she stepped.
Roughly the size of two large merchant caravans stacked atop of each other, the chapel was only slightly more illuminated than the vestibule. At regular intervals, concave sconces flickered cold candlelight. She walked down the centre aisle. Ranks of high backed pews rose on both sides.
She finally placed the scent that had bothered her since entering. A feral, earthy smell that reminded her of woodlands. She guessed that made sense: wasn’t Yhoundeh some kind of deer? But something else lurked just below the wild scent. Rotten meat. Carrion. The two smells brought to mind lumber workers that came to town every Friday for something to poke.
They splashed themselves with cheap cologne but still smelled like shit underneath.
Halfway down the aisle she paused. Dark shapes sat on the pews to her right and left. The lumped shadows started as ones and twos and multiplied in number with each ascending row.
Where she stood, the shadows were many, and they were human shaped. ‘What the hell?’ She stepped over to the nearest pew and inspected the form lying there.
Salt and pepper shag hair and brows, and a dingy white apron. London, the bread baker, but he’d been ruined. Great sunken holes replaced his eyes, and the of skin his face was tight and drawn into a hideous smile. Just beneath the grin there was another grin; a ragged black thing that stretched all the way across the baker’s throat. Congealed black fluid stained the apron.
While bent over the body, she scanned the many other forms lumped on the pews. Are all of these dead? Is Hattie here?
Her skin crawled. She took a step back and shivered. Disgust, fear, and confusion ran a lopsided race through her. With a hand over her mouth, Raine turned to leave, but did not move.
Raine tried again, but couldn’t move. Frozen to the spot. Not a figurative frozen by fear, her feet would physically not lift from the floor.
‘Holy fuck,’ she said as her heart crawled up her throat. She waved her arms, patted her legs. Pins and needles swarmed her lower extremities, and she feared she would fall. ‘What the hell is going…’ The numbness swept her body; everything fell away and she found herself a puppet standing in the centre aisle. She could neither move nor speak, but somehow remained standing and breathing and thinking.
Then her body turned and lumbered back to the pew. A sentient horse cart steered by a ghost.
Her body bent, hands fumbled along the worn carpet. She couldn’t see and had no clue what her body searched for, but when her fingers wrapped around the object, she screamed inside her head. ‘No…’ The object was sharp and smooth with a jagged edge, and cold as ice. Her body straightened, and the weak light flicked off the object. A shard of glass, stained green, and roughly the size and shape of a dragon’s eye tooth.
Warm fluid ran from her hand. Raine’s arm lifted the glass and turned so the jagged edge pointed toward her. Her mind flashed to the jagged tear along London’s throat. Something was going to use her body to slit her own throat, and she could only watch from the inside.
Her arm raised the shard. Lifted it ever closer. She concentrated. There had to be some way, somehow, to regain control. Control. Stop it. Stop it.
Drop to my side, dammit. Zhothaqqah. Lady Ardra. Crom. Who the hell ever, please help me. Hydra, goddess of my homeland, save me.
Sweat ran down her face. A pinpoint pressure began on the side of her neck. Then a sharp prick. Oh God, it’s happening. And…I. Can’t. Stop. It.
A warm trickle began down her neck to her chest.
Suddenly, a sloppy impact struck her behind, and she stumbled forward. Stumbled? Stumbled? Excitement raced through her and she flung the shard away. Something cold dripped down her back. High laughter peeled away into the distance. She turned to see pale, creamy custard splattered on the floor.
What—Oh. A grin creased her face as she rushed down the aisle toward the vestibule, the door, and freedom. A pie. Someone had thrown a pie, and somehow the sudden impact had broken the spell of the cathedral.
Even as she hurried toward the door, tiny human shadows raced away into sunlight.
She burst through the door and down the steps. Once on the cobbles again, she bent forward and laughed. Children. Mischievous children tossing a pie at an old maid had given Raine her life back. She ran a hand over her neck. It came away streaked with red, but not too much. Only a scratch. The pie had saved her just in time.
She paused the celebration, feeling downcast. Poor Hattie. Poor, poor Hattie. What were the odds a group of children also happened along at just the right time for her?
In a haze, Raine hustled back to the tower. Frazzled, and not wishing to appear so to the soldiers or her subordinates, she made her way around the wrought iron railing to the servant’s entrance.
Inside. Rounding a corner, she nearly blundered straight into the trio of soldiers. They huddled near a closet around the bend in the second-floor landing, three doors from her quarters. In her condition, she almost did not recognize them, but something in their body language brought her up short.
Before they noticed her, Raine ducked behind an oversized tapestry.
She peeked around the tasselled edge. Tio and Augustus leaned close as Pullo spoke.
‘Tomorrow’s the day, boys,’ he said. ‘I’ve been patient, and I’ve held you guys back. No more. We’ve been stuck in this dump for long enough.’
‘What we gonna do?’ Tio said.
‘We wait ‘til after breakfast…’
Augustus cut in. ‘Yeah. Let the bitch cook for us one last time.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s right,’ Pullo said. ‘Then we take them, and afterward, we kill them all.’
‘I want the big black,’ Tio said.
‘That’s fine. However, the head bitch is mine. You two can have the others,’ he said. ‘After we’re finished, we search the house and take what we want. There’s gotta be enough shit so we can live fat for years.’
Both Tio and Augustus laughed.
‘We rape them, kill them—in whatever order you boys want,’ he said and winked. ‘Raid the place and piss off. I am tired of this place and the regiment. Watch ‘em burn?’ He held out a fist.
Tio touched his fist to Pullo’s. ‘Watch ‘em burn.’
‘Aye,’ Augustus said, and bumped Pullo’s fist.
Their plans made, the soldiers moved past Raine’s tapestry. She held her breath and seethed in anger, the unsteadiness from the cathedral incident a distant memory. Every fibre screamed to fly out at the men—attack, claw their eyes, show them a thing or two about murder—but her cooler head prevailed, and she remained hidden. Their footfalls echoed away down the winding corridor, and the ringing began again.
◆ ◆ ◆
THE BELLS continued ringing throughout the night, and everyone felt tense and agitated the following morning. Raine felt worse, knowing what had occurred within the demonic church, but she had her own life and death struggle to deal with. She prayed the lack of sleep would only dull the centurions’ perceptions, not cause them to be overly suspicious or quick tempered.
And then Mariam nearly ruined everything.
Raine watched from the archway as Mariam carried the tea tray over to the seated men. The ceramic cups and saucers rattled in her shaking hands.
Pullo snarled at her but did not speak. His companions looked drowsy and drunk.
She held her breath while Mariam poured the spiked tea into their cups. Some of the liquid spilled, and steam rose from the silver tray.
‘Gods damnit. Calm yourself, girl,’ Raine hissed. She hoped Mariam had not spilled enough to eat holes in the tray. Earlier that morning, Raine had ground the front canine of a bitch Lycan hog and poured it into the kettle. A Lycan hog’s canines were very poisonous, especially a bitch’s, as she needed to protect her young. Working as head servant for a powerful wizard had its benefits.
And if Mariam had given up the game before it began…
‘What the hell?’ Pullo said. His loud voice echoed around the chamber, but the cacophony from the cathedral nearly drowned him out.
Mariam’s lips moved, but Raine could not hear her words. She bustled into the room proper.
‘Well…I was…’ Mariam stammered as Raine stepped to her side.
She cut Mariam off and shooed her away. ‘Wait,’ Raine said, and shoved the tray into her hands. Fortunately, it remained whole. After the door shut, Raine turned to the three men, who now looked confused and alert.
Leaning in conspiratorially, the housekeeper said, ‘She recently received word from the North that her son has gone missing.’ She tisked and shook her head. ‘Poor thing.’
The men appeared to swallow this. Their eyes glazed over. They looked from her to each other, and then to the biscuits and tea on the table before them.
‘Well, you men better drink up before your tea goes cold. I’ll be tidying up in the next room if you require something further.’ She placed her hands together, turned and exited.
In the next chamber, she found Mariam and Sergei huddled together.
Mariam sat weeping and furiously chewing her nails. Raine shushed her and cocked her head to listen at the door of the neighbouring chamber.
She did not have a long wait. Between rings came a thud, followed by another. The creak of wood, and the clatter of porcelain. Then a groan, a cry. The scuffle of feet dragging the stone floor. And more bells. Where was the third thud?
The door flew inward and in staggered Pullo, mouth frothing. He held out his short sword, but as his body died and his strength dwindled, the blade grew too heavy and the tip bobbed erratically. Eventually, the weapon clattered to the floor, a mere two feet from where Raine stood. What kind of man was this, to continue fighting after a dose of Lycan hog poison?
Still a dead one, that’s what kind. Raine grinned and met his swimming gaze. ‘Now you die, you pig, and may your deer goddess shit on your corpse.’
Fury knitted Pullo’s face even as his complexion paled, and he vomited pink foam that bubbled and dribbled down his front. Then he grew slack and dropped. His limp body smacked to the floor in a heap.
Sergei stepped forward and kicked the sword across the chamber floor, then he kicked Pullo’s body several times. Giggling, Raine rushed back into the breakfast chamber. Sergei and Mariam followed. Tio lay slumped on the floor beside his chair, and Augustus lay across the overturned table. White pink foam bubbled from their mouths, and ragged holes opened their throats where the poison had melted through the flesh.
Thank the gods for female Lycan hogs.
Raine let out the breath she’d held since first mixing the poison. She heard Sergei laugh behind her and then the sound of them high-fiving. We did it, she thought.
Phase one was complete at least. Kill the bastards. Now to hide the remains until midnight, and then move on to phase two. Get rid of the bodies.
Sergei dragged the corpses into the delivery chamber at the back of the tower. While he did this, Mariam cleaned and straightened the breakfast chamber.
Now if we could do something about those gods’ damned bells, Raine thought, and shuddered. The helpless sensation she’d felt whilst standing mid-chapel seemed all too near, now that the soldiers were taken care of.
Hattie’s body lay in there somewhere, along with many others. Later that night, Sergei would add three more to the occupants of the chapel.
Yhoundeh’s Reaping indeed.
Sometime that night, between Sergei’s second and third trips to the cathedral, the bells stopped. The sudden silence buffeted Raine’s ears, louder than a cannon’s explosion, as she stood by the back door. She lit her pipe and puffed furiously.
Eventually the vacuum created by the ceasing of bells dissipated. She could hear the cicadas’ muffled chirping from the park at the back of the master’s plot, and it was the most beautiful sound she could remember.
◆ ◆ ◆
TWO DAYS passed in blessed normalcy. No knells and no soldiers, and Raine’s nerves once again calmed. Even the experience in the cathedral began to fade like a distant nightmare.
Then came a knock on the door that quickly escalated to a banging. Her breath caught and her hands shook as she stepped to the front door and cracked it open. She had dreaded this moment.
On the stoop loomed a centurion. He was stoop sized and blocked all view of the street beyond. Many medals and ribbons dangled from his uniform and glimmered in the pale morning light. His face was red, and as she cracked the door, he raised a mammoth foot and kicked it wide.
‘Where the Hell are my men? And where is Lord Morg and the prisoner?’ He said, and stormed inside with a presence Morg would be unable to portray on his most intimidating of days.
Raine avoided the flying door and took several steps back, composing herself and ordering her thoughts. ‘He, uh, he…’ she began, the stutter in her voice only partially faked.
‘Speak.’
She swallowed and took a deep breath. ‘The inquisitor followed Master through the portal.’
‘I know that much. They have yet to return? Where are they now?’
‘No sir. They have not returned.’ Raine bowed, hoping the gesture came across as reverent rather than sarcastic. ‘And the soldiers that were left here…Well.’ She raised her hands and let them fall to her side. This was it; everything would work out or go straight to Hell, depending on whether he bought her story. ‘They…’
She gulped.
‘Two days ago, they went to the cathedral and did not come back.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I saw a large crowd going in and out of the cathedral on my way here. What’s going on down there?’
‘Sir, if I may,’ she said, leaning forward. ‘I and the other servants overheard the soldiers complaining about their enlistments. Several days they complained.’
‘Centurions do not desert their posts.’ He glared.
She shrank away. She had learned to deal with fear long ago, but the implications this meeting would carry forward daunted her.
‘Now. The cathedral?’
‘I am…I’m not sure. With my duties here, I have not had the opportunity to…What did you say was going on out there?’
‘Come.’ He turned on his heels and marched through the open door.
Raine followed the commanding figure down the street and around the next intersection. A large crowd of onlookers filled the block surrounding the great cathedral. The centurion shoved peasants and nobles aside and walked straight through. She followed close on his heels to avoid being swallowed by the crowd.
From out of the cathedral, men wearing hawkish masks wheeled stretcher after stretcher. Raine felt surprised that the spidery metallic legs of the stretchers could hold their burdens. On the mat of each one lay the sheet draped form of a human.
The centurion gasped. ‘What?’ He looked at her, but she could only shake her head. ‘Damnit to Hell,’ he said, and marched toward the cathedral and the workers.
Raine watched him walk away. Then she turned and zigzagged back through the crowd. Back to Master’s house, and back to her life. As far as anyone would know, the three soldiers had fallen victims to the Reaping.
The deed is done, she thought. She knew Morg would never make it back, and it was impossible to know when the Master would. Until then, she would keep the household in shape and try to put the previous week behind her.
So life returned and marched onward in the pentagonal tower of gneiss on the coast of the Mhu Thulan sea.